


Ordained

by inlovewithnight



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-09
Updated: 2006-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:43:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Ordained

The Admiral sends her over to Pegasus to report to Apollo--Commander Adama--the _other_ Commander Adama--frak, when is that ever going to stop being confusing?

He's still thorough and detail-oriented and it's just like reporting to him as CAG in that it takes a lot longer than anyone planned, and in the end he has dinner brought to his quarters for both of them and they sit there analyzing the mission by microseconds.

Half of her's still waiting for the scolding for getting the coordinates wrong. Miraculous discovery or not, she frakked up, and she'd like someone to call her on it just to confirm that the universe hasn't turned itself inside-out when she wasn't looking. The Old Man didn't reprimand her, but the Old Man's been a little off his game since Valerii, and nobody can blame him. Probably Tigh would've done it, if he'd had half a chance. You could count on some things, like Tigh being a hardass, no matter what.

When Apollo was CAG, he would've scolded her for it, but Commander Adama seems distracted and tired and not inclined to fuss. He pulls a bottle of pills out of his pocket and washes one down with his water, noticing the questioning look she tries to hide. He manages half a smile.

"The bullet wound. It's fine, but sometimes it bothers me. Gets achey." He rattled the remaining pills in the bottle. "But a commander's work is never done, so juice me up and keep me going. Where were we?"

She picks up the thread of the debrief, even though she's said all of this three times already, and he takes notes. After a few minutes, she can see that the notes are trailing off to squiggles and dots and, if she's not mistaken, a sketch of a flower. She trails off and they sit in silence for a few long moments, his pencil still moving. "Sir?" she says, finally.

"It can't just be chance," he says, staring down at his paper. "You finding that planet. It can't _just_ be an accident."

"I frakked up, sir." She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. "I'm sorry."

"No." He shakes his head slowly, raises his glass to his lips. "Don't look at it that way, Margaret."

His voice is a little slow, his eyes a little blurry, and when he takes the glass away, water runs down his chin. The Commander is a bit stoned. Pills hit fast when you're exhausted, as Apollo always is, always has been, ever since she met him. "Sir?"

"Maybe the Gods guided your hand." He slumps back in his chair, staring across the table at her, and he looks...almost awed. She glances back over her shoulder, but there's nothing there. That expression is for her. "I bet the President would say that. That it was ordained on high, and all that crap. You never know, maybe she's right. Divine intervention makes as much sense as anything else, around here."

She forces herself to laugh, a weak chuckle but it'll do. "I didn't know you were a religious man, sir."

"No other way to explain a good pilot frakking up those co-ords." He reaches for the water glass again, can't find it, lets his hand fall to the table. He's half-leaning forward now, braced on one arm, looking at her. "And you're good. You are." His other hand comes up, slowly, stretches out to brush fingertips along her cheek. "Maybe you're a goddess."

"Sir...it was just a mistake."

"Do you know why my call sign is Apollo?" His fingers are still dancing along her skin, almost too lightly to feel, tracing the curve of her jaw, the orbit of her eye.

"Just the theories in the locker room."

He hesitates at that, blinking at her slowly, his pupils blown out from the painkillers and swallowing up the blue. "There are theories?"

"That you knocked up an oracle. Or two." She swallows and shrugs, then shivers as his hand starts moving again. "So they say."

"Not so much." His fingers settle over her lips and her breath catches in her chest.

"They call me Apollo because I did the Kell's Sunburst maneuver in a Mark II and stuck it."

"That's against regs, sir." The words break off into another helpless chuckle as he leans in even closer, staring into her eyes.

"I know." His fingers drift down off her mouth, over her chin, tracing down her throat. "When I was in the middle of my set of two hundred push-ups in front of the whole wing, the flight instructor said I must've had a God on my side to pull that off. I think he chose Apollo at random."

"I don't think so, sir."

"No?" He raises one eyebrow, but he can't control his face and the other one goes up with it, and she starts to giggle. She's nervy and he's so close and it's all so frakking hilarious. "How do you think he chose Apollo?"

"It's not a difficult comparison, Commander," she whispers. He blinks, his smile falling away into innocent confusion, and before she knows what she's doing she leans forward and kisses him.  



End file.
